THE MAN being held in connection with the abduction, rape and murder of 20-year-old Janka Kovacova has told police he knew the victim.
“The night he abducted her, he said he was waiting in the area looking for just any woman, but that he knew her,” a police source told the Cyprus Mail yesterday.
The officer said he did not know how 31-year-old Panayiotis Netzadi explained knowing the young Slovak.
Speaking to the Mail from her home in Slovakia, Janka’s friend Petra said that if that were true, he couldn’t have known her friend well or she’d have known about him.
“I don’t know, it’s possible that he knew her, but if so, only to say hello. Nothing else,” she said.
Petra is one of three of Janka’s friends who came with her to work at the Grecian Bay hotel in Ayia Napa for the summer. The threesome returned home two weeks after their friend disappeared at the behest of their parents.
Janka went missing during the early hours of August 17 from outside the five-star hotel, where she had been employed since June.
Police arrested the Turkish Cypriot man after witnesses put him at the scene on the night in question and saw a young woman, fitting Janka’s description, being dragged and shoved into a white van. A partial number plate and an advertising slogan across the vehicle led police to Netzadi, who was out on bail pending trial for the rape of a Russian woman in Nicosia.
After 13 days in custody the 31-year-old finally broke down under questioning on Monday night and confessed. He took officers to the Dhali industrial area in the Nicosia district at first light on Tuesday and showed them where he had buried her.
Petra said: “Police showed me a picture of him and I didn’t recognise him but maybe I’d seen him before and just couldn’t remember. It’s possible Janka knew him through work and would say hello, but that’s about it.”
An autopsy revealed the woman found in the shallow grave on the side of the old Limassol-Nicosia road had died from asphyxia due to strangulation.
Although police believe the body belongs to Janka, due to its advanced decomposition officers are being flown to Slovakia to obtain a blood sample from the girl’s parents for DNA comparison.
“Once she has formally been identified, her body will be released and sent home for burial,” Famagusta district CID acting head George Economou, who’s heading the investigation, said.
Economou said Netzadi admitted to raping Janka in Ayia Napa and then driving to a Nicosia flat he kept. The Turkish Cypriot said he had a shower and then put Janka back in the van to drive her to Potamia where he lives with his parents.
“He said she fainted at some point when she was in the back of the vehicle and that’s when he strangled her to death,” the CID officer said.
“He’s not saying anything else than what he’s given us so far,” he added.
Petra said it was very hard coming to terms with the fact that her friend was dead.
“It’s hard for everyone, especially her parents,” she said.
Police added that Janka’s aunt, Helena, who had been in Cyprus to help with the investigations, had returned home the day after the autopsy.
Investigations are continuing in Nicosia and Ayia Napa and investigators are in the process of collecting another 30 testimonies related to the case. Forensic evidence taken from Netzadi’s Nicosia flat has also been sent for testing.
